538: Trump May Become The First Republican In 60 Years To Lose White College Graduates

[hack89]

Donald Trump does really well among white voters without a college degree. Indeed, he is on track to carry that group by a wider margin than Mitt Romney did over President Obama four years ago. But there’s another side to that coin: While Trump is outperforming your run-of-the-mill Republican among whites without a college degree, he’s underperforming among white voters with a college degree. In fact, he is on a track to lose white college graduates.

What makes this year’s turn of events even more interesting is how Clinton is doing this well among whites with a college degree even as she isn’t blowing Trump out. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t able to carry whites with a college degree in 1964 when he was defeating Barry Goldwater by 23 percentage points overall. That is, there has been a big leftward shift among white voters with a college degree without the rest of the electorate following along

The 2016 election is being contested along a different battle line than presidential elections usually are. Well-educated white voters say they’re going to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in numbers that just haven’t been seen over the past 60 years. That could have big ramifications for our political discourse, creating a class-based divide among white voters that isn’t akin to any other American election in recent memory.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-may-become-the-first-republican-in-60-years-to-lose-white-college-graduates/

Interesting numbers and an interesting insight to how the white vote is splitting by education.

[PJMcK]

1. He was never going to win this WCG's vote (n/t)

[Kelvin Mace]

2. Apparently a college education is not as educating as it would seem

at least for white people.

[LonePirate]

3. Money is more important than knowledge for Republicans.

[HereSince1628]

4. I sort of expect historically low presidential voting by repubilcans

I'm not sure at this point what it means for their down ticket races, but a whole lot of republicans who have been trained to vote straight ticket are going to be dividing their votes.